Thursday, 5 December 2013

Tylenol can kill you; new warning admits popular painkiller causes liver damage, death

It has been a common household name in over-the-counter pain relief for
more than 50 years. But the popular painkiller drug Tylenol is getting a
major labeling makeover following a string of personal injury lawsuits.
According to the Associated Press (AP), so many Tylenol users
these days are suffering major liver damage or dying that the drug's
manufacturer, McNeil Consumer Healthcare, has decided to put a large,
red warning label on the cap that informs users about the drug's risks.

Even
when taken at recommended doses, acetaminophen, the primary active
ingredient in Tylenol, can cause major damage to the liver, potentially
leading to liver failure and even death. In fact, acetaminophen is
currently the leading cause of sudden liver failure in the U.S., as its
toxic metabolites have been shown to kill liver cells. The drug is so
toxic that as many as 80,000 people are rushed to the emergency room
annually due to acetaminophen poisoning, and another 500-or-so end up
dead from liver failure.

These are disturbing figures that might
come as a surprise to most people, especially considering that millions
of Americans pop Tylenol and acetaminophen-containing drugs on a regular
basis. But with more than 85 personal injury lawsuits and counting
filed against the company in federal court, McNeil is feeling the heat
from a drug that has long been claimed as one of the safest painkiller
drugs on the market, which it clearly is not.

"The warning will make it explicitly clear that the over-the-counter drug contains acetaminophen,
a pain-relieving ingredient that's the nation's leading cause of sudden
liver failure," writes Matthew Perrone for the AP. "The new cap is
designed to grab the attention of people who don't read warnings that
already appear in the fine print on the product's label, according to
company executives."

The new label, which will bear the phrases
"CONTAINS ACETAMINOPHEN" and "ALWAYS READ THE LABEL," is set to first
appear on all bottles of Extra Strength Tylenol,
which contains more than 50 percent more acetaminophen per dose than
regular strength Tylenol. And in the coming months, all bottles of
Tylenol, including regular strength Tylenol, will bear the new label.

NyQuil, Sudafed, Excedrin and many other common drugs also contain acetaminophen

Despite the new label, McNeil, which is owned by drug giant Johnson
& Johnson (J&J), insists that Tylenol is safe when taken as
directed. But what the company fails to admit is that many people are
taking not only Tylenol but also other drugs that contain acetaminophen,
which increases their dose of the chemical to levels that are much
higher than they probably realize.

According to the AP, nearly one in four Americans, or about 78 million people, consume drug
products that contain acetaminophen in a given week. Some 600
over-the-counter drug products, it turns out, contain acetaminophen.
These products include other painkiller drugs like Excedrin, for
instance, as well as NyQuil cold formula and Sudafed sinus pills.

Combining
these and other acetaminophen-containing drugs is a major cause of
acetaminophen overdose, say experts, hence the addition of the new
labels. But some people who stay well within the maximum daily dose of
acetaminophen, which is currently set at 4,000 milligrams (mg) per day,
still fall ill or die, which suggests that perhaps any level of
acetaminophen is toxic and should be avoided.

"It's still a
little bit of a puzzle," says Dr. Anne Larson from the Swedish Medical
Center in Seattle, Washington. "Is it a genetic predisposition? Are they
claiming they took the right amount, but they really took more? It's
difficult to know."